Few coaches have as much experience with the U.S. national team as Dave Sarachan, who has been part of the process in three World Cup cycles, including this one.
As interim head coach for a year following the Yanks’ failed qualifying campaign for the 2018 tournament, Sarachan gave U.S. debuts to nine players Gregg Berhalter selected for Qatar — Tyler Adams, Weston McKennie, Antonee Robinson, Timothy Weah, Josh Sargent, Aaron Long, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Shaq Moore and Luca de la Torre — and utilized the services of seven more.
That was the starting point for the United States’ run under Berhalter to this year’s World Cup, in which it opens Group B play on Nov. 21 against Wales, followed by clashes on Nov. 25 with England and on Nov. 29 with Iran.
The former Chicago Fire head coach (and LA Galaxy associate head coach) was an assistant to Bruce Arena with the 2002 team, which stunned the world with its tournament-opening upset of Portugal en route to the quarterfinals, the furthest the U.S. has advanced since getting to the semifinals in a far smaller field at the inaugural World Cup in 1930.
And he assisted Arena again after Jurgen Klinsmann was dismissed during the 2018 qualifying campaign. They found early success, winning the 2017 Concacaf Gold Cup title, but lost at home to Costa Rica and in the qualifying finale at Trinidad & Tobago which denied the Americans a berth to the World Cup, the first they’d missed since 1986.
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